Higher Intensity,Higher Profit? Empirical Evidence from Dairy Farming in New Zealand

Over the last two decades there have been significant and well‐documented changes in the nature and structure of New Zealand dairy production. One particular feature has been a marked shift in the ‘input intensity’ of dairy farming systems through increased use of supplementary feed. These changes have generated debate about the impact of dairy farm intensity on the performance of farm businesses and the competitiveness of the New Zealand dairy sector. Using a novel econometric approach, we assess statistically the impact of three types of dairy farming systems on milk production and financial performance, using farm business data provided by DairyBase^®. Our empirical results show that higher input systems perform significantly better physically than lower input systems, but not financially. The disaggregated analysis suggests that the average treatment effects differ by region and performance quantiles.     

Global norm of national treatment for patent uncertainties: A longitudinal comparison between the US and China

Sporadic studies on the global norm of national treatment for patent uncertainties (NTPU) urge for insights of changes as well as for clarification to discrepancy. This global norm has been a concern for policy makers and practitioners for over a century, as a socially and strategically more significant matter than before for multilateral cooperation given the active technology transfer across borders. To fill in the void and extend prior studies, we examine the global compliance of NTPU from the perspective of patent pendency and granting by addressing three relevant questions: (1) Is NTPU upheld within countries? (2) How does NTPU diverge across countries? (3) How does NTPU change, as an outcome, over time? Based on the institutional theory, lagged regression modeling and longitudinal comparison of US and Chinese patenting, our findings reveal that: (1) NTPU is overall upheld because equality in pendency is demonstrated in both countries and in US granting, and foreigners are even favored for Chinese granting. (2) NTPU is comparatively divergent between the countries in pendency and granting due to national variations. (3) Regressive and progressive changes in NTPU are evidenced since both countries provide equal or higher granting, but longer pendency than before. Our findings contribute to theories by providing new insights to the global norm of national treatment and institutional theory from the perspective of patent uncertainties. We make novel empirical contribution to address NTPU changes of the top patent filing countries and methodological contribution to the longitudinal comparative study. The results also provide implications that concern policy makers and practitioners to handle patent uncertainties across borders.     

大豆大杂粉碎及重杂灭活工艺改造

随着国家对环保的重视,改变进口大豆大杂(豆荚、豆杆)焚烧处理的传统做法尤为重要,采用风选、粉碎等手段,区分处理轻重杂,杂质分别采用生产线高温高压和蒸汽湿热灭活法进行处理后,可充当纤维类物质掺入到成品豆粕中。根治环境污染的同时降低厂内安全风险,充分利用进口大豆秸秆类纤维物质,减少大豆损耗,以较小的投入实现经济效益和环境保护。     

房建工程地基基础施工关键技术探究

地基处理技术是近年来我国房屋建筑工程施工中一种较常见的施工处理技术,多见于房屋建筑工程中的软土地基施工环节。通过以往的房屋建筑经验,如果直接在软土地基上进行建筑施工,地基区域软土很容易会影响房屋建筑工程的稳定性,所以,在针对这一部分软土区域的施工环节,需要针对拟施工的地基软土区域进行处理,提升其软土的稳定性。到目前,地基处理技术已经在我国房屋建筑工程施工中广泛应用,这一技术应用过程中存在的不足也逐渐凸显,如何针对这一技术的不足予以完善,以此提升地基处理技术对房屋建筑质量的积极影响,成为了现阶段房屋建筑地基基础施工质量提升的重要环节之一。     

Psychometric validation of anti-clot treatment scale and treatment satisfaction questionnaire for medication version II in Japanese patients with atrial fibrillation

Aims: The Anti-Clot Treatment Scale (ACTS) and Treatment Satisfaction Questionnaire for Medication version II (TSQM-II) are validated treatment satisfaction patient-reported outcome (PRO) instruments. The ACTS includes two domains: Burdens and Benefits; the TSQM-II includes four: Effectiveness, Side Effects, Convenience, and Global Satisfaction. Japanese-language versions of the ACTS and TSQM-II have been developed and linguistically validated. This study aimed to assess their psychometric properties in Japanese patients with atrial fibrillation (AF).

Materials and methods: ACTS and TSQM-II data from 534 patients with AF were collected in a Japanese post-marketing surveillance study of a direct oral-anticoagulant, rivaroxaban. Four key psychometric properties, in line with best practice guidelines from the US Food and Drug Administration, were examined using traditional psychometric methods: acceptability, scaling assumptions, reliability (i.e. internal consistency reliability, test-retest reliability), and construct validity (i.e. convergent validity and known groups).

Results: ACTS Burdens and Benefits and TSQM-II Effectiveness, Convenience, and Global Satisfaction scales were found to be acceptable (e.g. item-level missing data at baseline <4%), with all scales having good internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha > 0.80). test-retest reproducibility intraclass correlation coefficients for the ACTS Burdens and Benefits were 0.59 and 0.65, respectively, and between 0.54–0.61 for the TSQM-II scales. Known-groups validity for the ACTS and TSQM-II was supported by differences in scale scores by positive and negative impact (p?<?0.05). Correlations between the ACTS and TSQM-II (convergent validity) were lower than expected (range r?=?0.09–0.48), but in line with the original ACTS development study.

Limitations: Evaluation of test-retest reproducibility was limited by assessment period, which was longer (3 months) than recommended guidelines (usually up to 2 weeks).

Conclusions: Overall, Japanese versions of ACTS and TSQM-II scales satisfied internal consistency reliability and traditional validity criteria. Our study supports the ACTS and TSQM-II as appropriate PRO instruments to measure satisfaction with anticoagulant treatment in Japanese patients with AF.

Trial registration: NCT01598051, clinicaltrials.gov; registered April 20, 2012.     

新会计准则下政府补助会计税务处理及其对研发加计扣除的影响

新会计准则完善了旧会计准则的不足,且对会计税务处理以及财务人员提出了更高要求。为了使企业在之后的发展过程中能更好地处理税务工作,分析新会计准则给企业经营带来的影响十分必要。基于此,文章分析了政府补助的内涵,以此为依据分析与之相关的会计核算和税务处理工作,并以当前的企业案例为依据,总结新会计准则下政府补助的会计税务处理对企业研发加计扣除产生的影响,进而为企业持续长远发展提供有参考价值的建议。     

Can Poverty be Alleviated in China?

The 2000s witnessed the third poverty alleviation wave in China. Compared with its predecessors, the third wave distinguished itself by new interventions and redefined standards for the National Poor Counties. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of the new program using a data set consisting of 1,411 of China's western and central counties from 2000 to 2010. It combines the propensity score matching method with the difference‐in‐differences approach, which helps to avoid selection bias and track the policy impact on variables of interest at each time point. It is found that the non‐western local governments tended to manipulate data on income and output growth to maintain the special transfer payments disbursed exclusively to the National Poor Counties. It is also shown that the program failed to improve the infrastructure and sanitary conditions in general.     

Observation of other's preferential treatment as a constructive catalyst for improved repatronize intentions

Observing others receive preferential treatment has been found to provoke bystanders' negative reactions. However, seeing others treated better may also inspire bystanders to increase their repatronize intentions. Drawing upon theories of social comparison and goal-setting, this study investigates the condition when watching another's preferential treatment acts as a catalyst to enhance bystanders' repatronize intentions and the mechanism by which the constructive effect appears. The results indicate that when bystanders witness similar others' preferential treatment and believe that they can attain comparable treatment, their goal-setting motivation is more activated and consequently they are more committed to goal-relevant behavior (i.e., repatronize intentions).     

自动岩土工程勘察与地基处理问题及解决对策

在建筑工程项目建设过程中,岩土工程勘察为地基设计提供了基础支持,能够为建筑物基础设计、地基处理、施工提供工程地质资料和技术参数。但是,很多建筑企业不注重岩土工程勘察工作,导致实际勘察工作中出现了一系列问题,相关部门需要深入分析这些问题,针对岩土工程勘察和地基处理问题制定相应的解决方法,论文主要分析了岩土工程勘察与地基处理问题及解决对策。     

Estimating the potential impact of requiring a stand-alone board-level risk committee

Motivated by the requirement under the Dodd-Frank Act that all large bank holding companies create a stand-alone, board-level risk committee, this paper investigates the association between such a committee and regulatory risk both before and during the financial crisis. I focus the analysis on the set of banks that did not have a risk committee in place prior to the Dodd-Frank Act, as these are the banks that were most affected by the regulation. I find that matched control banks with a risk committee in place had higher capital ratios during the financial crisis, but lower capital ratios during more stable economic conditions relative to the banks without a risk committee. This paper contributes to the literature by narrowly investigating the effects a board-level risk committee, by focusing on a risk measure that is of interest to the regulators who implemented the new regulation, and by documenting that this association changes over time which highlights the importance of estimating the effects of new regulations across different economic conditions.